Little Girl Gone (An Afton Tangler Thriller #1)(42)

“Our field office just received an anonymous tip. Somebody saw a man toss a bundle into a Dumpster down behind Rush Street Pizza at Twenty-fifth and Lyndale. You know where that is?”

“Yeah. A bundle, you say?”

“The caller thought it looked like a baby.” Jasper’s voice was so loud and insistent that Afton could hear his words blaring from Max’s cell phone. “They’re sending a black-and-white to the scene but if you could . . .”

“We’re on our way,” Max said. He cranked his steering wheel hard, executing a skidding U-turn right in the middle of Marquette Avenue. Cars honked, a bus jammed on its brakes and swerved, and Afton hung on for dear life. It was like being in the middle of a NASCAR race. Or if somebody really had dumped the Darden baby, it might just be a life-and-death race.


*

HOLY shit!” Afton cried. Skidding into the pizza restaurant’s back parking lot, Max almost plowed headlong into a black-and-white cruiser as it also converged on the scene, its light bar pulsing red and blue.

“Easy, easy,” Max said as he twirled the steering wheel hard and slid, nose first, into an enormous pile of plowed snow. They were still moving, in fact, as Afton flung open the passenger side door and jumped out.

She was focused on only one thing—the dark green Dumpster that was shoved up against the back of the building. It was stuffed to capacity with bags of trash, and big hunks of wet, floppy cardboard spilling over the sides. The words DARREL’S SANITATION were stenciled on the front.

Max caught up to Afton and then the two uniformed officers caught up to him.

The officer, whose name tag read PINSKY, had a hangdog face and a worried expression. “The information we got said a child might have been stuffed inside?” he asked, his breath pluming out in the cold air. “A baby? Is this the . . .”

“We hope it’s not the Darden kid,” Max said. He put a hand on the Dumpster and glanced around. “Somebody want to give me a boost?”

But Afton had already stuck her toe on a protruding handle and, with an agile leap, landed on top of the one metal flap that was closed. A dull clang resonated in the cold air.

“Be careful up there,” the second cop cautioned her. He was younger and looked more athletic.

“Studer, get up there and help her,” Pinsky ordered.

But Afton was single-mindedly focused on her mission. “I got this,” she said as she bent forward and yanked open the second metal flap. The pungent odor of stale beer, rotten tomatoes, mouse droppings, and dirty socks assaulted them. Your basic sickly-sweet aroma.

Studer made a face. “Jeez.”

“See anything?” Max asked.

Afton stared down at mounds of black plastic garbage bags, hunks of frozen pizza, assorted beer bottles and cans, and stacks of ripped cardboard. “Not yet.” Her heart was filled with dread but she steeled herself. This was too important to wimp out now. “I’m gonna have to . . . uh.” She grabbed a fat garbage sack and tossed it out onto the snow. It landed with a heavy splat. Cardboard, beer cans, and bottles followed in quick procession as the smell got progressively worse. “I still don’t see any . . . Oh shit.”

“What?” Max asked. He was standing on tiptoe now, trying to peer into the Dumpster.

Afton bit down on her lower lip. Right under her right boot, stuck below a pizza box, was a dirty white blanket. Please no.

“There’s something here,” she said.

“Careful,” Pinsky cautioned.

Afton reached down and gathered up the bundle. As she straightened up, her foot slipped on something slimy and one leg started to slip down into the unsteady pile of trash. She hurriedly passed the bundle to Max and caught herself on the lip of the Dumpster.

“Let’s get you out of there,” Studer said. He reached up to give her a helping hand.

But Afton was focused on one thing. “Is it the baby? Is it Elizabeth Ann?” she asked as she scrambled down the side. “Should we call an ambulance?”

Max carefully unwrapped the dirty blanket.

“Holy crap,” Studer said, his face going slack.

They all stared wordlessly at a huge pair of blue eyes that had sunken into a cracked plastic face.

Pinsky was the first to find the words. “Holy shit, it’s a broken doll. I really thought it was gonna be that dead kid.”

Studer’s mouth worked soundlessly for a few moments and then he croaked out, “But it almost looks like it’s alive.”

“That’s because it’s a reborn doll,” Afton said.

Studer frowned. “A what?”

Afton and Max stared at each other.

“Cameras,” Afton said.

Studer stowed the doll in the backseat of his squad car while Afton, Max, and Pinsky took turns ducking into the pizza place, a pet grooming business, the Pressed for Time One Hour Dry Cleaner, and the Cut & Curl. In talking to the managers in all the businesses, they found only one shop that had a camera positioned outside. The dry cleaner.

The manager, actually the owner, was a harried-looking man who introduced himself as Joey Debow. He was skinny, had dark slicked-back hair, and looked to be in his early fifties.

When they gave him a quick rundown, and told him what they’d just discovered in the Dumpster behind the pizza place, Debow said, “This is about that missing baby, isn’t it? You thought it might be that kid.”